


Better Together

by bolide_belle, GlowAmber



Series: Modern Tangled [1]
Category: Tangled (2010), Tangled: The Series (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Near Death Experiences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-14 17:18:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14773857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bolide_belle/pseuds/bolide_belle, https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlowAmber/pseuds/GlowAmber
Summary: Three chapters, five short drabbles. Each from a different focus character, showing how James Ward and his two adopted children, Cassandra Ward and Eugene Fitzherbert, become a family.Chapter 3: Eugene





	1. James

James can hear the children both running back and forth upstairs as they get dressed and ready, and he smiles a little to himself as he finishes putting the last touches on their breakfast. It’s Eugene’s first day back to school and his first day in school coming from the new house.

Cassandra is the first one down the stairs, thundering away to the dining room where she throws herself in her chair with narrow eyes. Her dark wavy hair hangs loose around her face, and he knows his daughter enough from their last year together that she’s upset. He pushes the bowl of oatmeal in front of her, spotted with fresh chunks of strawberries, and her shoulders relax down a notch. It’s a start.

He’s just sat down the second bowl of oatmeal, a gluten free version, when Eugene skids in and stares at them. Patiently, James Ward watches his new foster son look around suspiciously before he joins Cassandra at the table and starts to poke at his oatmeal. There are slices of banana on top and the boy pauses before he starts to dig in like he was starving.

He probably had been, before.

James makes a note to put more food in his lunch box tomorrow.

\-------------------

Eugene has been with them for over a year and school has ended for the summer, then resumed, before he approaches James with a stack of paper in hand. “Can you tell me about your family?” He asks, and it's an odd question for the boy who is just starting to accept them as permanent fixtures in his life. He puts aside the calculator and pats the cushion next to him to invite his foster son up.

He knows he’s being watched as he neatens their math sheets, he feels the couch dip as the boy joins him, and then he takes in a deep breath. “So what’s the assignment really about?” James tries to keep his tone casual because he knows Eugene isn’t really curious about his family. This has to be for school, and that’s fine with him, but he is curious.

“Mrs. Anders wants us to write about our family history, and…” He sees him falter before he picks up bravado, forcing a casual smile like he does to deflect, “Well this is my family, right? So what’s the family history, James? Long line of cops?” They’re almost to a real family, he reassures himself, this is a good sign. Someday he’ll be called dad by both children. As much as he wants Eugene to connect with him, however, he’s worried because Eugene is an orphan-- isn’t he curious?

And he asks. “Don’t you want to know about your family?”

He gets the flattest look, “They didn’t want me so why would I want to know about them?”

James doesn’t press him on that, that’s what the therapy is for. He does however get him interested in doing a DNA test so they can find out his heritage, instead, because everyone needs something to connect to. Something to find home in. 

Everyone is surprised when Eugene is Jewish.

\-------------------

It’s another day that she’s locked herself in her room and he can feel the headache coming on. Cassandra has gone back to shutting down and putting up walls, he doesn’t know why. He thinks they’re past the rivalry between her and Eugene, and Eugene isn’t acting guilty or jumpy… So he can’t pinpoint the problem. 

Four days in a row, Cassandra has come home from school in a silent fury and gone straight into hiding. He’s tried tempting her out with her favorite dinners and deserts, offered to take them to the movies, and now he’s on the verge of offering a day out for just them if she’ll only just speak to him. Silence from her reminds him of the early days of her fostering, when she was so positive he was going to abandon her. With any luck, the screaming will start, soon, and the problem will air itself.

Finally, instead, she comes home the next day and Eugene finally looks guilty and uncomfortable. He’s not sure what happened, unclear why his kids both look like they’ve been crying, but the worst seems to be over. 

“... You two want to do movies and pizza, tonight?” 

It looks like a good night for them to pile on the couch and bond, he thinks, and Eugene gives a quick shaky nod. Cassandra just leans into his side, gripping his hand with her smaller one. “Can we get ice cream, too?” 

One shopping trip later, they’re all bundled in a thick comforter with Max at their feet and one of Cassandra’s favorite action films blaring. The coffee table is a mess with pizza boxes and ice cream tubs, but, James glances down at the kids on either side of him, and he doesn’t mind in the slightest.

\-------------------

Balancing his work and home life is difficult, especially as a single parent. He knows single moms in the force, but it’s awkward to strike up conversation and ask for tips. They all have young children who don’t have the same issues. In fact, he really doubts anyone he knows would be stupid enough to adopt two street kids with this many issues in such a short time. 

Sometimes he isn’t home when they get home from school and he’s been through so many babysitters because his children are hellions. Sometimes he feels like he’s fighting a losing battle because he’s exhausted all the time, trying to figure out how to juggle Cassandra’s disease and strict health concerns and Eugene’s diet and religious needs, on top of keeping up his performance at work. 

He understands why people get married and have children, now, because two people might make this easier. Then again, another person would upset the delicate balance in the house and he’s never been partial to the idea of a partner outside of work. 

Cassandra gets sick, one day, and this is what he was afraid of. She has a fever and she’s vomiting, and he has no choice-- he has to call out of work. With her condition, it could be bad; he’s not sure. Eugene rides shotgun with him to the hospital, looking back with worried brown eyes constantly at the preteen slumped in the backseat. “She’s going to be okay, right?” 

James processes for a moment, his mind buffering between what his Captain is going to say about the missed days he’s going to need and how much this is going to cost him, and the moment must have been too long because Eugene asks, again, louder. More worried. “She is? Right? She’ll be fine??”

How many kids died on the streets because they got sick, he wonders, and Eugene’s face is pinched and terrified. “She’ll be fine.” He hopes and thinks so, at least.

He had to tell Eugene about her condition when he first started fostering him, it was important, but he can tell that his son never thought about it until now. And other than constant doctor appointments to keep an eye on her, he hadn't either. She was as normal as children can.

Hours later, everyone is relieved when it's just a case of food poisoning. Cassandra teases them both from her bed, IV needle in her arm as she rehydrates. “As if it'd be that.” He really hopes it'll never be that.

James ends up working overtime to pay the hospital bill from where his insurance didn't cover. He doesn't wonder if it's worth it, he's thinking of the way Eugene clutched Cassandra and how they both tried to pretend they weren't crying. 

\-------------------

He makes Sargeant and there are two faces in the crowd he's the most excited to see. They're young teens, now, at the age where it's cool to not care. They care. Senator Frederick King, his best friend, is holding a party to celebrate and he barely remembers to thank him because his mind is still hyper focused on the gifts he received after the promotion was announced.

“WORLD’S BEST DAD.”

Eugene keeps shooting him grins and Cassandra has a tiny smile, they both know he’ll use that mug til the day he dies. He cried when he opened it, Eugene cried, too. His daughter called them both crybabies and hugged them. 

They're old enough to be home alone, now, so he can work the long hours he needs to. He’ll still worry, but that's because he's their dad and not because they're troublemakers. 

They both promise they'll get him to ugly cry when he makes Captain and he has no idea how they can outdo this moment right here. He's never been more happy in his life to have adopted them.


	2. Cassandra

The cop has a big white pitbull that follows her around the house and Cassandra is attached. She loves this dog, he is nicer than all the other dogs she has met in her life. He sits at her feet when she eats, he curls alongside her when she sleeps, and he guards her when she goes into the backyard. Sometimes, when she’s so angry that she screams and stomps and cries, Max noses into her side and she ends up crumpled around him to sob into his neck.

It’s not that she doesn’t like the cop, she does, he was nice to her when they first met and talked in a quiet low voice. He got her a sandwich, something to drink and sat with her the entire time. He found her a stuffed owl to hug, and she still carries it in one hand when she patrols the house. 

But the cop also left her in that awful place for two months and she’s afraid she’s going to go back. She’s afraid that she’ll blink and wake up in that noisy place, with all the children who whispered and the adults who looked at her like at her like she was a monster. She didn’t do anything to them, at first, but when one kid started to pretend that he was dying because he touched her? Maybe she got mad, and maybe he felt like he was dying after because she punched him so hard his nose bleed. That only made the adults more mad and talk worse but the kids avoided her and stopped whispering around her, so every time they moved her homes, she learned. Fight them.

The longer she’s here, the more she’s scared of going back there. She likes it here too much, likes that she has her own room with a nice bed and soft clean clothes and good hot food. There’s no fighting, no whispering. No one else but her, the cop, the dog, and her owl. She likes the schedule, too, Cassandra really likes that. There’s a clock in almost every room and the cop has taught enough to read it. Weekends change the schedule, a little, but she can count on the clocks to know what’s going on.

She’s starting to count on the cop, too.

\-------------------

He doesn’t ever ask her to call him Dad, but he refers to himself as her Dad. The capital was important, because the way he says it? Cassandra really likes it. Everyone else calls him her Dad, too, but she hasn’t yet. She sounds it out sometimes, alone, debating. It sounds important, official, like she belongs here and with him. It’s not like she calls him by his first name, or calls him the Cop anymore.

They’re going over her paperwork around the kitchen table and Cassandra has her nails in one of the cracks of the wood, digging at it, when he asks her something important. She has to think about it, and so she doesn’t say anything but stare at the tabletop, chewing on her lip. He doesn’t ask again and she really likes that, he gives her time. He’s a good cop, a good adult. “Viper,” She says at last, looking up at him expectantly. It’s a scary word, and a tough one. It’s also a character she likes on television, they both know that.

He cracks a smile under that big mustache and she grins back.

“Cassandra Viper Ward. Not a bad ring to it.” 

She grins down at the tabletop and this time she pets Maximus’ head, bubbling with energy and the want to run around like mad. They had given her a name at the foster homes but she had hated it, and now he was doing this for her. Changing her last name to his, giving her a middle name… Adopting her.

Her legs swing back and forth with the excited energy as he finishes the signature on the last form, then reaches over to put his hand on the top of her head. “I just need to turn these into the lawyer tomorrow.” She wonders if he’s excited as she is, and something itches in her throat as she smiles back up at him.

“Thanks, Dad.”

He tells her later that crying isn’t always bad, that sometimes you cry when you’re happy. He tells her that he was really really happy, and Cassandra vows she’ll call him Dad forever, then.

\-------------------

School is the worst thing in the world and she hates it. She hates the special classes they make her take, she hates the things people whisper around her, and she really super hates Flynn Rider and Lance Strongbow. Those aren’t their names, she tells her best friend when they’re alone, and Rapunzel makes noises like she agrees but Cassandra doesn’t think Rapunzel does.

Rapunzel doesn’t understand people like she does, that sometimes people are just bad and that they lie. Like Flynn Rider, because his name is a lie and he’s a lie. 

They share classes, sometimes, because Flynn is never in school for very long and he has trouble reading. Not like she does, because someone taught him to at least do it, but he still struggles. The teachers keep them separated as much as possible because Flynn throws things at her and she has, more than once, showed him that she can beat him up with more than her fists. He’s not as quick with words because Cassandra has learned to have the sharpest of tongues and she can make him cry.

She’s learning to hate home, too, because Flynn is all Rapunzel talks about and now her Dad has brought him into her home and he’s ruining all of her schedules and clock times. He says she won’t understand, that Flynn’s in trouble and people want to hurt him. She understand that, however, because Flynn is trouble and she wants to hurt him.

She’ll settle for calling him Eugene in the halls and watching him give her dirty looks.

\-------------------

Someone has hands on Eugene and they’re yanking him out of the front yard, there’s a car with a door open waiting and another man there. She doesn’t like the look of them, they remind her of the people that sort of raised her, and she really doesn’t like that they’re trying to drag Eugene away. She doesn’t like him but Dad does and he’ll cry if anything happens to him, she knows.

So she opens the front door with her baseball bat in hand and lets Max out, first. “Maximus, sic’ them!” 

Eugene looks terrified when the pitbull jumps the man on him and then all sorts of relieved as she runs up. The crack of her bat against the other man’s knee cap is so satisfying, and she can hear the neighbor lady out front finally, calling the cops. Calling Dad. Oh, man, she’s calling Dad. Cassandra reaches for Eugene’s hand and she yanks, pulling him back to the front porch with a pinched look on her face and an urgent “Run!”

Max comes in with her Dad, later, covered in blood and looking happy with himself. Her dad does not stop crying for hours, hugging both of them, and Cassandra gives Eugene a little smile over his shoulder. When Eugene still looks scared after all the hugging, she goes up to her room and comes back to sit beside him on the couch, dropping her owl plush in his lap.

He stares at it for a while, not sure what to do, and then starts to cry. Cassandra rolls her eyes when he hugs her and the owl, but she’s … happy.

\-------------------

Andrew hung out with Eugene, first, but now he hangs out with her. She doesn’t understand it because no one really hangs out with her, not unless they’re angling to ask her out and she’s not good with that. She says yes because she thinks that’s what she’s supposed to do but she keeps it all a secret, because she doesn’t really like it and so Eugene and their Dad don’t need to know. He’s probably trying to ask her out, and he’s not bad looking, but Cassandra doesn’t really know him.

He’s walked her to the buses every day, so far, and he talks a lot about things that she thinks are said to impress her. He volunteers with animals, he’s vegan, the list goes on and on. Most of it sounds like bullshit. It's the way he says it. And as if he realizes he can’t impress her that way, he changes subjects one day and brings up Eugene.

Cassandra narrows her eyes as she listens to him. It’s not widespread that Eugene was adopted into her family, that they’re siblings. What is school knowledge is that she and Eugene squabble on the daily and sometimes insult each other in awful ways, but they’re siblings and they can get away with that. It’s nothing too mean, at first, just enough that she’s gearing up to tell him off, when he starts to make fun of Eugene for maybe having a crush on him.

She sees red.

Maybe she shouldn’t have gone straight to violence, but she’s only a few punches in when she hears Eugene holler from across the courtyard and then they’re both tag teaming this long haired jerk. 

Their Dad sits them down later as he’s tending to Cassandra’s bloody knuckles and asks Eugene, first, why he was beating up Andrew. She lights up and beams when her brother rolls a shoulder and says, “Because Cass was hitting him so I figured he did something to her.” He’s a good brother, now. He’ll drop anything just to protect her, even if she was probably in the wrong.

All she says when she’s asked? He said something rude. She’ll never admit to Eugene what Andrew said to him, but she tells her Dad, later in private, what was said. James grips her shoulder and tells her he’s proud of her though maybe next time she should stop after one punch.

Cassandra thinks about it, and thinks about Eugene’s face when he’d been talking to Andrew before he’d been ditched, and disagrees. She thinks she should have broken his nose for talking about her brother that way. 

No one’s allowed to insult her brother but her.


	3. Eugene

They pull him out of the river and he can still feel the water in his lungs and see the black crowding his vision. If they had been seconds later, Eugene would be dead and that’s a scary thought. He’s not even 13, yet, but the cop cut him loose from the ropes and his worried face burns itself into his brain right before he blacks out.

He spends days in the hospital to recover, and the cop visits with the same worried face. Eugene isn't super happy to have him visit, even if he literally saved his life, because something else burns in the cop’s gaze. It looks like determination and Eugene wonders what it means for him. 

The cop brings Rapunzel and Cassandra with him during his visits and the blonde girl cries a lot the first two days. He cries, too, overwhelmed and tired and afraid, and she holds his hand. Cass merely stares at him with the same intensity her dad does, clutching a toy owl he's never seen her with.

He finds out, later, why they look at him when the social worker takes him to his new foster home. It's in a nice neighborhood, the nicest he's been to, a pale blue two story with a green yard and a fence that is not damaged at all. It looks like a picture book and he doesn't like it, doesn't know what lurks behind perfect smiles and houses. And then the cop opens the door and Eugene shoves his duffel bag back into the car.

He doesn't want to do this. He doesn't like their pitbull, doesn't like them, doesn't like the way Cass glares at him from behind her dad's leg.

It doesn't seem like it matters because the cop and his social worker shake hands before he's shown to a bedroom that's bigger than any room he's had before. It has its own bathroom, even.

He's still wary of what it all means. After the social worker leaves and Cassandra has run off downstairs, the cop sits him down to explain some rules and other things. Like why he gets his own bathroom.

“Don't you get that from dirty needles?” He asks with a disgusted face because he knows what hepatitis c is, he's a street kid. He knows what junkies look like, and while Cassandra is a cold blooded snake? That's not her. 

Finding out that she was a street kid like him, too, doesn't change much. He swears it doesn't. And if he's a little more careful with some of his insults, that's just because they were old and he needed fresh material.

\-------------------

They get the results back and he's Jewish. It's weird, he thought it was a religion but James explains it's also an ethnicity. And he's 90% Jewish. Both of his parents were, he's told, and probably most of their families. He doesn't care about them, not anymore, not since he was six and gave up on them coming back for him.

He does care about being Jewish, though. He wants to know more, he's almost starved for the information. And that's a mistake because researching his ethnicity introduces him to something he wasn't prepared for at all.

James rubs his back and tries to coax it out of him, freezes when he says what he found, and they make a trip the next day. 

“It's called a synagogue.” He's told, “It's like a Jewish church.” James sits with him while the Rabbi talks to him and he asks his questions, because he has so many. He feels the pain in his chest when he finds the strength to ask about what he read, about the Holocaust, and the Rabbi tries to help him understand.

They go back again and again and he feels… welcomed and at home. He doesn’t tell James that he's grateful, not at first, but much later after his Bar Mitzvah.

When someone asks him, later, if he's interested in his birth family? He repeats that he doesn't need them and he can't help but look over at James who is mingling with the other men. He doesn’t need to explain to anyone why he feels so tense and light at the same time when James gives him a fond smile.

He doesn't feel like he needs to explain that the synagogue isn't the only place that feels like home. Not anymore. Eugene leans into James on the way back and closes his eyes, tired and happy and whole.

\-------------------

Cassandra being quiet would be kind of nice if not for the fact that he feels like a bomb is ticking away. She doesn't come down for meals and she avoids both him and James, which, the former he's okay with considering her mood. The latter is weird. She always goes to James. 

They have a pact, now, they're good. When they squabble it's just in fun, and they both back off before anyone gets hurt. She's become close to him, and he's not used to feeling this possessive over anyone. No one other than Lance, but they've known each other longer. 

Then again, Cass did take on an adult to save him.

He tries to ignore her bad mood, but the more time passes? The more he feels like it’s his fault. It's something he still struggles with, guilt over everything, that they're better off without him. His therapist tries to help him cope but she's setting off his anxiety.

He shouldn't do it, he knows, its a bad idea, but he goes against their truce and pushes. They're on their way home and he refuses to let her go into the house until she talks to him. Cass doesn't even look at him or talk to him and he keeps stepping in her way and grabbing her arm to stop her. Eugene shouldn't, he should back off, let her have space, but he gets in her way still.

She shoves finally and he says something he doesn't mean. And he really doesn't, there are lines you don't cross, but his mouth gets away from him because he wants her to just talk to him. To stop ignoring him. His insult is one of the ones he knows bothers her, that this is why no one likes her, that she's just a dumb brat.

And Eugene freezes as she does and he can pinpoint the moment she breaks because her face scrunches and her eyes go watery just before she opens her mouth and wails like she's been stabbed. He fucked up, he knows, he's never seen her cry and she's punching his chest with both fists as she sobs. She sputters something about Rapunzel and it takes him a moment to catch his breath and thoughts because OW she caught him in the gut.

“Rapunzel likes me? That's why you're so mad??”

And as soon as he says it and sees how her tears renew, he knows why she's so mad. He didn't know Rapunzel had a crush on him, and didn't know that Cass … Oh, Cass.

He feels the guilt build up and he wants to lash out but instead he breaks down and just wraps his arms around her. He feels her hug him back after what feels like hours and hears her sniffled apologies and rants, and it's just so much. He's not used to crying so often but Eugene can blame his therapist for encouraging it. It's supposed to make him feel better but all he feels is hot and empty and snotty.

At least Cass holds his hand when they go inside.

After their little movie night is over, Eugene stays awake to think it all over. Cass is curled up on the couch tight around her stuffed owl, and it really hits him that she's his little sister now. She's family now and just like he's hers to protect? She's his to protect. They're family.

It takes him a while to swallow down tears and he ends up sleeping downstairs with her, Max half on his chest and Cass migrated to the other half. He really does like Rapunzel back, but that can wait. 

He doesn't want to see Cass cry again. 

\-------------------

It's his birthday and he doesn't know what he's expecting. Not this, probably.

He and James have been bonding for a while now and he's not quite there at Dad, yet, but he knows what Cass meant now. How it felt like an itch, like a need. It burns at his throat and chest, clawing to get out.

He's staring at a half scrapped piece of metal. It doesn't have wheels, it has no doors or glass. He knows James is talking but God his head is foggy as he stares because his brain can't process more than the fact that this is his dream car and it's sitting with a stupid red bow on it.

Yeah, it needs so much work but even in this shape? It's still a ‘63 Chevrolet Corvette, his dream car. He got presents last year, but this is bigger and more … insane. He doesn't think James is trying to buy his love, that's not how he works, but he recognizes that he's gone above and beyond for him.

“I thought we could work on it together,” James is saying and Eugene breathes in sharp. He's only 14 and this might be ready by the time he can drive, he can see just how he wants it and how to fix it. And god, he can absolutely see him and James spending weekends on this for months.

He leans back against another car in the junkyard, collapsed almost, sagging there with wide eyes and the dopiest grin crossing his face. Eugene nods when James tells him it's his Christmas present, too, and that he’ll have to do some work around the neighborhood to help afford the parts. He's so okay with that, he wants to work on this and make it his own so bad.

He barely registers that a box has been shoved into his hands, he's so focused on the car-- his car! Cass laughs at him and he snaps to attention, the box is the size of a book? Maybe? There's a bow on it, too, and he lifts the lid to peek inside.

Eugene didn't cry over his car, but he definitely did cry over the adoption papers in the box. And if James cried when Eugene thanked him and maybe called him Dad, Cass was the only witness. 

(He finds out later she recorded it all on her phone. He's not even mad.)

\-------------------

Everyone is planning what they want to be after high school, plotting their futures as if it's all that simple. Maybe it is. Cass sits across from him in their living room and argues with Lance and Rapunzel about acceptable jobs.

Freeloader isn't acceptable, apparently, and neither is busking. He knows they're just goofing on one another, that Lance wants to go to culinary school and that Rapunzel has her hopes set on being a painter. They all burn so bright and he remembers how his Dad and Cass looked that night when they came to his hospital room. They burned, too.

Does he burn like that?

He's not positive what he wants to do, he's not great at a lot of things. Eugene is passing his classes but he’s not top of any of them and being a mechanic is fun only on the weekends.

Their Dad stops in to check on them with a plate of snacks before he leaves for work, and Eugene stares at him. Sergeant Ward. The man who saved his life and adopted two street kids, raised them on his own even though it was hard. He never trusted cops before him, none were ever good.

James Ward is a good cop.

He asks them what they all want to be and gets joke answers from the other three. Cass has given into the antics and decided to be a lion tamer. And then his Dad is looking at him and he has no ideas, no answers.

When he opens his mouth, however, the answer comes out honest and serious. 

“I want to be a cop.” 

It's so quiet and he feels everyone watching him so he flails internally, trying to recover. “You know, because the force could use a handsome guy like me! I could charm any crook into confessing! Look at this smile?” And he lifts his chin and sweeps a hand through his hair but the damage is done. 

His dad is smiling at him like he's so proud and Eugene’s chest feels tight. Cass slugs his chest before she drapes an arm over his shoulders, “We’ll be the best cops they've ever seen!”

Eugene laughs and stumbles with his words but he can't take it back, now, he's not sure he wants to.

Guess he does come from a long line of cops, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Joy and I are gonna continue with this verse, so keep an eye out for the next installment! They'll mostly be one shots or drabble ficlets like this. :D


End file.
